Kutztown cuts $3.8 million to balance budget

Kutztown University is cutting 47 jobs and $1.2 million in academic programs to make up a $3.8 million budget shortfall for the 2011-12 academic year.

The budget cuts, along with a 7.5 percent tuition increase, come as Pennsylvania slashes funding by 18 percent for its 14-state owned schools.

"We found ourselves faced with the unenviable task of exploring our limited options for budget reductions, none of which seemed desirable," Kutztown President Javier Cevallos wrote in an open letter to students and faculty this week. "We spent considerable time reviewing all aspects of our annual expenditures and, in the end, came to the painful conclusion that another substantial reduction in personnel would be necessary."

The university said 25 of the 47 positions were vacant. The job cuts come from both teaching and other positions and equal $1.9 million in savings. Another $700,000 will be saved through employee retirements.

Kutztown eliminated 39 custodial, administrative, management and temporary faculty jobs last year, 29 of which were already vacant. The school has cut nearly $10 million from its budget over the past three years, according to a university press release.

Academic cuts include the previously announced moratorium on the nursing and theater programs and the elimination of the department of academic advisement.

Kutztown's Early Learning Center, a preschool for two dozen students that also served as a lab environment for select education majors, was shut down in June.

Kutztown, along with other state-owned universities, faced a 50 percent cut in state funding in Gov. Tom Corbett's initial budget proposal. Cevallos warned Kutztown students and faculty in March that tuition would increase 32 percent if the school made no other cuts and state funding was not restored.

Though the final state budget axed only 18 percent of the State System of Higher Education's funding, it still represented a $90 million reduction. Kutztown faced an $8.8 million deficit before the systemwide 7.5 percent tuition increase.

In-state Kutztown students will pay $436 more for their 2011-12 yearly tuition and out-of-state students face a $1,090 hike. The union that represents faculty at Kutztown and Pennsylvania's 13 other state-owned universities agreed to negotiate a one-year wage freeze as suggested by Corbett.